Boiling point in Cologne
21st June, 2006
DUSK in Cologne, and the city’s temperature was threatening to boil over for the second successive evening. The ‘Fan Fest’ park in the city centre was full and the security guards were not letting anyone in, but seemed unable or unwilling to tell the crowd by the entrance gates what was going on.
It all got too much for one England fan, who launched a tirade of verbal abuse at a shaven-headed, thick-necked security guard, and was promptly led away by half-a-dozen German police. With minutes, the police were using their force to restrain a Germany fan.
The main square in the shadow of the city’s Gothic Dom church resounded to the noise of seething tension, of bottles smashing and of broken glass being kicked around. Seventy thousand England fans in Cologne were too many for the organisers and the German authorities to cope with.
You can blame FIFA for this mess. England and Sweden have two of the largest followings at this World Cup, and yet world football’s governing body chose to hold the match between them at one of the tournament’s smallest grounds. UEFA had the good sense to move England’s group matches to a bigger stadium after the draw for Euro 2004 was made: FIFA denied itself this option, and created a whole load of trouble as a result.
The upshot was that, if you didn’t have a ticket for this match, and you didn’t have a lot of money to chuck at a tout, you had no chance of getting in.
“There aren’t enough tickets for the fans at this World Cup,” said supporter David Lloyd (pictured below), a former Salford University student now living in London. “I only got a ticket for this game because my friend works for FIFA. There are far too many tickets going to sponsors. Togo got a bigger allocation of tickets than we did.”
“There are 70,000 England fans in Cologne, and FIFA gave us 3,000 tickets. Dortmund, Munich and Berlin all have bigger stadiums than Cologne, so why not play the game at one of those grounds?”
But if you had deep enough pockets, you still had a chance of getting in. Outside the RhineEnergie Stadion, a Sweden fan wore a sign around his neck which said: ‘I need a ticket, it’s my 20th birthday today.’ Within seconds of that fan being interviewed for German television, a tout pounced. The fan dug into his wallet and pulled out a wad of 50 euro notes for what must have been his most expensive birthday present ever. He proudly clutched his green rectangle of card, then removed the sign from around his neck.
If he had listened to some of his fellow Swedes before the game started, he might not have bothered shelling out. “England will win 2-1,” said Torsten Gruzla. “Beckham and Lampard are better players than Ljungberg and Larsson; England have a better team.”
England’s fans were cagier, knowing that although a second-round place was in the bag, topping the group would ensure an easier draw.
“I’d rather we played Ecuador than Germany next,” added Lloyd. “Finishing top of the group would mean avoiding Argentina until the final if they win their group.”
Fellow England fan Andy Furness, pictured above, added: “Everybody’s saying we want to avoid Germany, but I’m not so bothered. You’ve got to beat everyone to win it.”
Back in the city centre, the tension cooled as most fans managed to find a vantage point from which they could see bits of the big screen, if not all of it. I retreated into a bookshop doorway and watched the scren over a fence, between two concrete pillars.
England’s fans winced as Michael Owen suffered an early injury, then cheered as they led twice through Joe Cole and Steven Gerrard. But their opponents hit back twice, and the match ended in a draw, as it always does when England play Sweden. Both sides qualified for round two, and England avoided Germany. Instead, it’s Ecuador in Stuttgart on Sunday.
Although the result mattered to England and to Sweden (and in particular to that fan celebrating his 20th birthday), for the Cologne authorities, it was just a relief to hear the final whistle. You get the feeling that Cologne will not be sorry to see the back of England.
